But the church recently posted its intention to demolish a building that, according to the National Register of Historic Places, helps give the Heights its distinctive character: the handsome old Gothic Revival church at the corner of 15th and Cortlandt, a red-brick exercise in buttresses and pointy windows.

Though closed up for more than a decade, observers say that the thick-walled sanctuary has only minor structural problems. Hurricane Ike ripped off a few shingles and some flashing near the bell tower, and pigeons have set up housekeeping in the attic.

But double-layer brick walls were built for the ages. Recent interior photos make your heart soar: Plain, heavy wood beams make the high, white-painted ceiling seem even higher; but pointed-arch doorways and stained-glass windows add still more drama. Inside and out, it's a beautiful building.

But a beautiful unused building is still an unused building, and the 400-member church doesn't have money to do a proper job of bringing its abandoned sanctuary up to snuff for use as classrooms or offices. So, recently, church members voted to raze it — not in order to build anything on that corner, but to save the cost of maintenance.

The lot, says Ken Bakenhus, president of the congregation, will just be cleared. Most likely, in place of the historic church, Immanuel Lutheran will plant grass.

Bakenhus, who says he would prefer to save the church, served on a 2002 committee that looked for ways to bring the building back to life. Nothing came of that, though, and he isn't optimistic.

Bakenhus, who says he would prefer to save the church, served on a 2002 committee that looked for ways to bring the building back to life. Nothing came of that, though, and he isn't optimistic.

“The church's voters voted for it to be demolished,” he says. “Hardly anybody in the church wants to save it. … All the older members say, ‘Tear it down!' They don't want to see it.”

That short stay of execution is the sum total of the commission's puny power in the Heights, the neighborhood Houstonians most associate with the word “historic.” Though the church clearly lies within a city historic district — the Houston Heights Historic District East, to be precise — it's not in a “protected” historic district. Houston has only one of those: the tiny Old Sixth Ward. Everywhere else, as Evans lamented in a recent e-mail, “the city's historic preservation ordinance is nothing but a speed bump.”

But while the church still stands, there's hope of preserving it. At least two people hope to work out some sort of deal with Immanuel Lutheran.

Bart Truxillo, the preservation architect who restored downtown's Old Magnolia Ballroom, says he'd be interested in working out some deal in which the building could be renovated as offices and meeting rooms — maybe for Immanuel Lutheran's own use, maybe with the use of grant money. Maybe Immanuel Lutheran could sell the building with an agreement to rent it back, Truxillo suggests; or maybe the deal could be done in reverse, with Immanuel Lutheran leasing the building, long-term, to someone who'd fix it up.

Gus Kopriva, director of Redbud Gallery, says that he'd love to put a nonprofit organization in that space. He says he'd like to form a museum and archive of Texas art — a visual-arts cousin of Lambert Hall, the former Heights Christian Church building that's now home to Opera in the Heights.

“I walk by that beautiful church every morning at 6 a.m.,” Kopriva says. “And I think, ‘Look, it's just sitting there. It's a shame.' But it would be even more of a shame if it were gone.”